By the time the E Street warehouse fire broke out, firefighters had already fought three fires in East Sacramento

Fire investigators continue to look into Thursday's four Sacramento area fires – one at a downtown warehouse and three at East Sacramento houses.

Fire officials said Friday they were reluctant to draw connections between the four fires this early in the investigation.

"I'm not willing to say yet what they found, obviously because it's suspicious and because we don't have anybody in custody yet, we're going to be a little bit careful about what we say," Sacramento Deputy Fire Chief Lloyd Ogan said.

However, they are calling two of the East Sacramento house fires suspicious and are not ruling out anything as they continue to collect information from the scenes.

One by one, homes located blocks from each other erupted into flames within two hours Thursday afternoon. In each case, the fire began in the rear of the home where back alleys gave access to the properties.

The first fire started around 11:41 a.m. at Susan Roberts' house on the 400 block of 33rd Street.

"I think the fire was started in my bedroom, and you can't even tell there was any furniture in there," Roberts said. "There's not even a stick of wood. There's just a hollowed out shell."

In less than an hour, a home on 49th Street caught fire. Firefighters prevented the flames from spreading to surrounding homes, but neighbors began to worry about the possibility of a serial arsonist.

"You wonder what the odds were that it could have been me rather than my next door neighbor," said Toby Brewer, who lives next to the burned home.

The third house fire on the 3900 block of N Street began just an hour and a half after the first one.

Investigators did not say which house fires they deemed suspicious.

Just when firefighters hoped to catch their breath Thursday evening, a 2-alarm fire at a warehouse on the 1400 block of E Street sent them back into action. The warehouse suffered nearly $2 million in damages. Firefighters believe they were able to save nearly $4 million worth of property by stopping the spread of the flames.